Student nurses march to premier’s office

STUDENT nurses from various campuses of the Gauteng Department of Health’s nursing colleges braved the wet weather yesterday as they marched to Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s office in Newtown, Johannesburg.

The march by more than 300 students was supported by various trade unions in the sector, including the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union, and the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union.

Secretary-general of the South African State and Allied Workers’ Union (Saswu), Mmeli Gebashe, lamented that Lesufi has money to fund his crime prevention wardens and other initiatives, while he fails to fund the provision of health services, which is more important than some of the recent pothole repair programmes.

“We, as Sasawu, support you as workers. We do not see you as students; we see you as workers. It is not fair that you are front-line workers when it comes to Covid-19 and other epidemics, and they want you in front, but when it is time to pay you, they tell you there is no money or there is no space for you. But they have the budget for the premier’s crime-fighting wardens, ama panya panya. They have enough budget to fix potholes, but they do not have enough budget to employ and pay you as health workers,” Gebashe said.

The march went ahead in spite of a court interdict obtained by the Gauteng Health Department to halt the protests. In a bid to stop the students, they also opened a case of intimidation against them, which is set for the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, next month.

Richard Banda of Denosa said the union stands side by side with nursing students as they feel their struggle.

“As Denosa, we stand in unity with you as nursing students. The struggle of nursing students is the struggle for all of us,” he said.

The march comes as third-year or R171 nursing students continue to demand that they be paid their stipends until the end of November after the department refused to continue paying them as they have become ineligible to receive payments from the department.

Other issues cited by the unions are the lack of employment opportunities afforded to young nurses, who idle at home due to this.

Last week, the department indicated that it would not be able to fund the stipend of more than 160 third-year nursing students as it would be flagged as an irregular expenditure.

The department added that they could not do anything about some of the issues raised by the students as their academic programme was ending this month and they would not be placed at any medical facility until they wrote an exam in November.

A student nurse who is based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Nursing College slammed the department for refusing to pay them until November, saying the department has left them in limbo.

“We have now decided to take our grievances to the premier as previous memos to the MEC have failed to yield results. We demand that third-year students who are finishing their studies be retained prior to and after the exams. Nursing is a skill that is needed every day, yet there is a shortage of nurses in the country,” she said.

Attempts to get comment from the department and the premier’s office were unsuccessful at the time of publication.

During the handover of the memorandum, several office-bearers in the premier’s office promised to deliver the grievances of the protesting students to Lesufi, who was not available on the day.